


I Spy With My Fairy Eye

by sapphic_ambitions



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Healing, M/M, Misunderstandings, margo's fairy eye, our boys are in love and idiots, so weird that 4x13 didn't air
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:02:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18676480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphic_ambitions/pseuds/sapphic_ambitions
Summary: Margo wasn’t used to Eliot withholding from her. He knew everything about her and she knew everything about him. Especially after the fairy deal gone wrong, they had vowed to be as open and honest with each other as possible. And yet…..after she got him back from the Monster, he was holding back.ORMargo is oblivious to the Queliot drama until she accidentally overhears them. (Written before 4x13 aired)





	I Spy With My Fairy Eye

Margo wasn’t used to Eliot withholding from her. He knew everything about her and she knew everything about him. Especially after the fairy deal gone wrong, they had vowed to be as open and honest with each other as possible. And yet…..after she got him back from the Monster, he was holding back.

She didn’t think he was doing it on purpose. In fact, she didn’t think he quite realized he was doing it at all.  _ In fact _ , she thought he was actually trying as hard as he possibly could to be close to her again. Immediately after saving him from the Monster, they went back to Fillory, to have the centaurs look him over and for Margo to reclaim her crown. Margo thought that getting him away from Earth and all the memories there would be good for him, and she was mostly right. Mostly, he just wanted to be near her. The second she entered a room, he was there by her side. He was never more than five feet away from her whenever they were together. He had been a little hesitant at first with his physical affection, fearing the effects the Monster had left on her, but he eventually settled back into his normal routine: always holding her hand or kissing the top of her head or laying his head in her lap like he used to. 

It was good for both of them, in the healing process, to go through the motions of their old closeness. Every time Eliot saw her, he greeted her with a breathless “Bambi!” and every time they parted ways, he would look her dead in the eyes and say “I love you, Margo,” in full and complete seriousness.  That part was a little weird for her, just like, in general. It was like he was always afraid it was the last time he was going to see her, and then like the heavens opened up every time she reappeared into his life. But she let it slide and let him do it. She couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through when possessed by the Monster. 

He tries to tell her about it. That’s actually the first time she notices him pulling away from her. They’re curled up together on a lounge chair in Margo’s king chambers one night, and Eliot is telling her all about Charlton and his Happy Place. She listens intently, just allowing him to get it off his chest and into the open air. It’s only when he lulls that she dares to ask a question.

“Quentin said that you broke free for a moment, that day in the park. How’d you do it?” The reaction was almost immediate. Margo was pretty good at reading body language and the second she started speaking, he physically shifted. Leaned back ever so slightly, clasped his hands in his lap, and suddenly found the fireplace in front of them very interesting. All Eliot “run away” tactics that made her curse herself in her head. He cleared his throat.

“I had to, uh, go through my most traumatic memory,”

_ Shit _ . Her thoughts immediately flashed to his childhood, his father, his powers, literally anything that had happened in the last three years. She reached out her hand and placed it on top of his. “Eliot,” She breathed.

“Bambi,” He shook his head.

“If you need to talk about it, honey-”

“Margo,” His voice was so soft, she almost missed it. But his chin was tucked into his chest and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She sighed, squeezed his hand, and changed the subject. He’d tell her when he was ready. Whenever that would be.

The second time she notices him really pull away, hold back, and put up his wall is when they go back to Earth for the first time since the Monster. Kady sends a bunny that she needs help with some kind of Hedge Revolution and Eliot says he’s up for a little “rabble rousing. ” And so, they go. Penny 23 taxis them from one world to the next and they plop back into the living room of  Kady’s apartment. 23 blipped away a second later to gather the rest of the troupes, leaving Eliot and Margo alone. Well, not entirely alone.

The first thing Margo sees is Quentin, who had been sitting on the couch doing some reading. He’s startled by their sudden appearance, nearly dropping his book in the process, and looks up at Eliot. There’s a look on his face that Margo can’t quite place: a nervousness and fear? But it wasn’t that long ago that their tall friend was being possessed by a childish Monster, and Quentin spent the most time dealing with that asshole, so it was no wonder the sight of him made Q nervous. Margo knew he’d get over it eventually. 

“Eliot,” Quentin breaths and Margo rolls her eyes at their awkward little nerd. But she follows his line of sight to Eliot and finds that he’s paler than he was before, and his eyes are flitting around the apartment.

“Oh shit,” She says, and both of the boys' heads snap to her, “Eliot, you’ve never actually been here,” 

They’d exorcised the Monster out of him in that Forest and then immediately transported him to Fillory, so plopping him back to Earth in a strange environment was a bound to make him nervous. Margo kept forgetting that El was a little bit more fragile these days than he let on to be. “This is Kady’s apartment. It’s kind of been like our base of operations while you were...away,” She explained.

Eliot nodded and cleared his throat. “Is there like a balcony or something I can go be dramatic on to get some air?” His tone was light, but the look in his eyes was that of a wounded animal, so Margo pointed him in the right direction and he scuffled out the door. Breathing in the New York air would be good for him, to ground himself in reality after months in hell and then in Fillory, Margo reasoned. A little smog never hurt anybody.

“How is he?” Quentin asked, once the door had clicked shut. 

Margo sighed and sat down next to him on the couch. “He’s doing better. At least, he’s trying to be. But he’s not… quite there. Like he’s still five feet away from me. Or something. I don’t know,” She threw her hands up and leaned back onto the couch, slouching in a way she never could in Fillory. “But he is better,”

Quentin nodded, not saying anything. Not that there was anything more to say. 

But then Margo had a thought. “Hey, I never asked,” Margo shifted so that she was turned towards Quentin, who quirked an eyebrow. “What happened when he first woke up?” she pressed. “Like, what was his reaction? Did he freak? That might explain why he’s been a little weird lately. I know you said he nearly died, but he's clearly still alive and he won’t tell me what happened,”

Quentin cleared his throat and began stumbling over words. “He, uh, he was fine. It was fine. He just didn’t know where he was. But he--he didn’t like, freak out or anything,”

Margo raised an eyebrow at her bumbling friend, but didn’t press. Eliot was their collective best friend, so she could understand not wanting to remember a bloody and thin Eliot moments after the Sorrows did their job to get rid of the Monster. Margo had gotten to the pair less than five minutes after Eliot was brought back, and she had flung herself into her best friends arms and sobbed her eyes out. Not that she’d admit that to anyone. But she had missed his grand reentry into his own body, and she hates that.

Quentin was still nervously fidgeting and clearly uncomfortable. Margo was suddenly sorry she’d made him reflect back on that memory. He had been the one, after all, to drive the Sorrows into Eliot’s chest. She shouldn’t have asked about it. Not that she’d admit that to him.

So she changed the subject to talk about Fillorian politics while they waited for everyone else. Soon Penny 23 was back and had Julia, Alice, and Kady in tow. They all greeted Margo awkwardly, and Julia joined Quentin on the couch. Margo wasn’t really friends with any of these girls, not in the way she was with Q & El, but it was nice to see them. Well, maybe not Alice. Alice, who gave Quentin one look before she was bolting towards the kitchen, leaving an awkward tension in the room. Q sighed and put his hands over his face.

“What the fuck was that?” Margo asked, and Kady rolled her eyes.

“They broke up again,”

Quentin shot her a glare. “Kady!”

The brunette shrugged. “What? It’s what happened,”

“What was the point of getting back together if they were just going to break up again?” Margo pointedly asked Kady and a little bit Julia, leaving Quentin completely out of the conversation. Both of the girls had hints of smiles on their faces in teasing their friend, but Quentin was less amused.

“We are not discussing this right now!” He said, groaning.

Margo lightly slapped his arm. “Alright, alright, don’t get your panties in a twist, Coldwater.” She stood up and gestured to the balcony. “I’ll get Eliot and then we can get this party started,”

Once they were all gathered in the living room (and very much all trying to ignore the awkward tension in the room), Kady started explaining to them the situation and where she needed extra hands. It was kind of impressive (and hot) to watch Kady take control of the room, putting Penny, Alice and herself on field duty to go out and lead on some of the riots. It was decided _ for them _ that Julia and Eliot would remain in the apartment, as they were both still too weak to go out and raise some hell. But Kady did have some things for them to do back here, like sending messages out to other hedges and tinkering with some broken weapons that they found in Marina’s closet. Quentin volunteered to take a look at the weapons, with his newly discovered mending discipline. Margo and Julia took on the task of sending out messages, using their combined social skills and Julia’s knowledge of the hedge community to their advantage. This left Eliot, who reluctantly agreed to help Quentin with the weapons at Margo’s suggestion. 

She didn’t quite understand why he seemed so nervous to deal with the weapons, but she figured some time with Quentin would be good for him. With the amount of time he’d spent loving on his Bambi, it was only fair that Q got some of the love, too. So they all split, with the field group blipping away with Penny 23, Margo and Julia making their way to the kitchen, and Quentin bolting upstairs. Eliot sighed, and Margo locked eyes with him. She gave him a look, silently questioning if he was okay, but he shook his head and waved her off. So she shrugged and joined the demigoddess at her laptop. 

They worked for an hour, sending emails and bunnies and making phone calls to just about every hedge in the city and maybe the state. Julia even reached out to some people across the country, spreading the word about the Hedge Rebellion. But eventually they ran out of steam and Margo fetched them both a cup of coffee and insisted on a break. She and Julia had never been close or even really friends, but after spending the last few weeks with a different person recently possessed by a Monster, she knew the signs that their energy was wearing down. Julia quietly thanked her for the cup and sipped on it, and a peaceful silence passed between them. Margo actually very much wanted to ask if she was okay or how she was doing, but couldn’t quite bring the words to escape her mouth.

“I’m fine,” Julia said, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards into a polite smile. “I can tell you want to ask me, so I’ll just tell you. I’m a strong girl and I can handle my shit.”

Margo nodded and pursed her lips. “Good. I’m glad,”

Julia’s smile had a hint of teasing in it. “I won’t tell anyone,”

Margo grinned, and they clinked their glasses.

“Things have been a lot worse for me before,” Julia set down her mug. “I wasn’t in there for that long, only like a couple days, and I didn’t have to relive my most traumatic memory, like Eliot did. So, really, I’m fine, all things considered. I’m more worried about Q, honestly.”

Margo frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He’s just been….” Julia sighed. “Off. Ever since the forest. I thought that Eliot no longer being possessed would make things better, maybe get him to take better care of himself now that the weight of the world isn’t on his shoulders,”

Margo’s mouth twitched. “Have you met Q?”

“True, ”Julia nodded. “He’s just been so on edge. And distant. He even broke up with Alice again? He’s been a bit of a wreck,” 

“Yeah, what the fuck is up with that?” Margo rolled her eyes.

The demigoddess shrugged. “He won’t talk to me about it,”

Margo took another swig of her coffee, and dismounted off her bar stool. “I know the feeling. Eliot’s definitely been holding back on me.” She gestured upstairs. “Speaking of, I’ll go check on our boys,” Julia raised her glass in acknowledgment as Margo turned and quietly made her way up the stairs.

She had hoped that giving the boys alone time would allow them to reconcile, or talk about what they had gone through, as they hadn’t had any time together since the forest. But to her disappointment, the upstairs was entirely silent. She could see that the door to Marina’s old room, now Kady’s, was wide open, so she should have been able to hear something. Small chatter or moving parts or….something. But, it was deadly silent, and for all she knew, had been for the last hour. Marog supposed that she could have just barged in to see what the fuck was going on, but her curiosity got the better of her. So she snuck closer to the bedroom walls, and blinked.

The last time Margo had met with the fairies, just a couple weeks ago, they gave Margo a more in depth tutorial on how to properly use her eye. She now had lots of cool tricks up her eye socket, one of them being the ability to see through walls. It wasn’t quite x-ray vision, but she could now see the two men standing on opposite sides of the bed, weapons between them, and Quentin tutting. But nothing happened.

“They’re still not moving, Q,” Eliot said, a biting tone of exasperation lining his voice. 

Quentin turned away from the bed and rubbed his hand over his face. “Where have I heard that before?” He said, with a biting tone of sarcasm lining  _ his _ voice.

She could practically feel the tension radiating off of her best friends.  _ What the fuck?  _

“What is that supposed to mean?” Eliot shot back.

“You know exactly what that means,” 

Eliot crossed his arms. “Now who’s quoting the mosaic?”

_ Mosaic?  _

“You don’t get to pull that card, Eliot,” Q spun around and pointed at him. 

“Then what  _ fucking _ card am I supposed to pull, Quentin?”

“You’re the one who turned me down!” He snapped back.

“Well, I was wrong!”

Their raised voices quieted. They both awkwardly shuffled their feet and looked anywhere but each other. Eliot’s crossed arms dropped and he instinctively reached for Q before pulling his hands back. Margo’s eyes were practically out of her socket. She had clearly just walked into the middle of some fuckery. 

“I was wrong,” Eliot said again, softer. “And I was afraid of something  _ real _ and I ran away. And I’m sorry,” Quentin put his hands in his pocket and looked at the pile of broken weapons. “I’m sorry that I hurt you and I left you,” Eliot continued, “And I’m sorry that I thought you’d wait for me. That wasn’t fair to you,”

“I did wait for you, El,” Quentin’s head snapped up, his tone defensive. “For practically a fucking year, long before the Monster. All I wanted was to be with you,”

Eliot scoffed, and Margo could see his defenses go back up. “And yet you jumped right back on to the Alice train the second I was gone,”

“That’s not what happened,”

“Oh yeah, cause it sure fucking looked like it,” Eliot hissed. “I get back, practically from the dead, and you reject me-”

“What was I supposed to do when you just kissed me in the middle of the forest-”

“-and afterwards Margo tells me you’re back with Alice-”

“-you were bleeding everywhere and I was fucking panicking-”

“-and I spent my entire time in that goddamn hell hole trying to get back to you-”

“-and I had spent the last several months fighting my way to get back to you-”

The overlapping yelling stilled once more as they realized what each other had said. They were fighting like they were an ocean, Margo thought. Crashing into each other full force before pulling away, before crashing into each other, before pulling away again, faster than she could really follow. Margo was gonna need a drink after watching this.

Quentin sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. “Getting back together with Alice was a fuck up, I know. But we were so close to getting you back and I was so….scared that you wouldn’t want me again that I just…” He wiped his hand over his mouth, “I latched onto her,”

Eliot’s jaw tightened, “And then I came back,”

Then Quentin looked at Eliot,  _ really  _ looked at him for the first time since they started this dance. “And then you nearly fucking _ died _ , Eliot. I held your bleeding body in my arms. Do you have any idea how that felt, to fear that you were dead  _ for real _ , knowing I had been the one to drive in the axes? That I had been the one to kill you?”

Eliot shook his head, but Quentin was steam rolling now and barely paying attention. “And for the record, it’s not the first time I’ve mourned your death in the last six months. The Monster lied to me and told me that he felt your  _ soul _ die, Eliot. Your  _ soul _ . And I just had to sit there and take it. And then there was that day in the park,” Quentin’s voice faltered, and he sat on the edge of the bed, taking deep breaths. Eliot hesitated for a moment, but then moved to sit next to him, not touching him, inches apart. But he was there, with him.

“You came out and said “peaches and plums” and  _ everything _ changed. And I spent months dealing with the Monster, just trying to bring you back. To bring you back to  _ me _ ,”

“But,” Eliot pressed, “That day in the forest-”

“That day in the forest I thought you died in my arms. And then suddenly you were awake and kissing me?” Quentin shook his head, “I panicked, and I was overwhelmed with everything, and I pushed you away. It was just all too much at once,”

The silence between them was so still that Margo was afraid to breathe.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Quentin,” Eliot said, quietly, tediously, like he was dipping his toe into another crashing wave. “All I know is that you’re angry at me,”

Quentin’s shoulders dropped, and he made a noise in the back of his throat. “I’m not  _ angry _ at you, El. You’re the one who fucked off to Fillory the second you got back, before we had the chance to talk about anything,”

“Because there was nothing for me here,” Eliot protested. “You’re with Alice now, so what is there for me on Earth?” 

Quentin paused, and took a deep breath.

“I’m not….I’m not with Alice anymore,” he said. “It was a mistake. And it’s over,”

Silence between them, again. 

The ocean wave retreated into itself, again.

They sat inches apart, barely touching, perfectly still.

“Do you…” Eliot swallowed. “Do you still love me?”

“Yes,” Quentin said, with no hesitation, no second thoughts, just immediately shifted his body towards Eliot. Margo couldn’t make out the look in his eyes, but she knows Q well enough to picture that puppy dog look on his face. “Eliot, I never stopped loving you,”

Eliot nodded, and Margo imagined the teary look in  _ his _ eyes.

“I….I still love you, as well,” Eliot said, so softly that Margo almost missed it.

The ocean between them was no longer raging, or thrashing to the shore. The water between them stilled and dried, and Margo could feel that through the walls. 

“So, what now?” Quentin asked, and Eliot sighed.

“I want another fifty years with you, Q,” Eliot confessed. “If you can forgive me….if you’ll  _ have _ me, I want to give us another shot,”

Margo was going to have a lot of questions later. 

Quentin reached over and lightly took Eliot’s hand. He entwined their fingers, and then brought it up to his face to kiss Eliot’s knuckles. It was all so tender that Margo wanted to vomit. 

Eliot, on the other hand, laughed. “Did you just  _ Pride and Prejudice _ me, Coldwater?”

And then Quentin was laughing, too. “I sure did, Waugh,”

“So….that’s a yes?” Eliot asked.

“Yes,” Quentin confirmed. “Yes, to another fifty years. Yes, I forgive you. Yes, I’ll have you. Yes, I want to give us another shot. I mean….why the fuck not?”

Eliot, very gently, placed his other hand on the side of Quentin’s face, and Q leaned into his touch.

“It’s gonna take a lot of work,” Eliot said.

“I know,”

“It’s not gonna be easy,”

“It never is,”

They looked at each other for another moment, and then Quentin surged forward and was kissing Eliot. And then Eliot pulled him closer and kissed him deeper.

Margo took this as her cue to leave. She blinked again, and the wall returned to normal. Quietly as she possibly could, she snuck back down the hallway, back down the stairs to where Julia was waiting. The demigoddess was still sipping on her coffee, and greeted Margo with a warm smile upon her reentrance to the kitchen.

“Hey,” Julia said, “How’s it going up there?”

Margo sighed, placed one hand on her hip and one hand on the counter.

“You’re never gonna fucking believe what I just saw,”

 


End file.
